Bicycles Quilicot Shifted Gears to Success with Evolia
About Bicycles Quilicot
- 150+ Employees
- Family-Owned for 100 Years
- Pioneer of Montreal Bicycle Racing
- 6 Boutiques Across Montreal and North Shore
Bicycles Quilicot is a family run business with a telling 100-year history and started at the forefront of cycling in Montreal. The company has evolved from its early days of pioneering bicycle races to a modern enterprise with six retail locations across Montreal and the North Shore.
Each location staffed with cycling enthusiasts and ready to provide expert advice to both novices and professionals. A true pillar to the community and bike culture.
Acquired in 2005 by Marc-André Lebeau, the company has expanded under his leadership, maintaining a strong focus with customer service and an unwavering passion for cycling. Paired with company growth comes other challenges that Bicycles Quilicot needed to solve for.
The Challenge: Synchronizing Passion and Schedules
Complexities in Workforce and Schedule Management
Managing a specialised retail operation that caters to passionate cyclists presents unique challenges, particularly in scheduling.
Anthony Gagné, Shareholder and Branch Manager, kept running into the same issues. High-traffic periods during evenings and weekends require precise scheduling to ensure proper staff allocation to deliver great customer service. But their old system held them back and couldn’t manage this complexity across six stores and 150 employees.
Employee availability and needs sometimes conflicted with retail shift schedules and were hard to manage. Add on manual budget tracking and disjointed scheduling, this coordination was even more difficult. Ultimately, leading managers to spend unnecessary time and energy on schedule and shift management. The lack of real-time visibility and communication channels further delayed approvals and prevented managers from addressing strategic priorities.
The Solution
After evaluating several software options, Bicycles Quilicot chose Evolia because the unique features met their unique requirements. Mr. Gagné and his team were especially drawn to the budget module, which stood out from the rest. This feature allows Bicycles Quilicot to integrate labour cost planning directly into the scheduling tool. For teams, this enables branch managers to efficiently allocate hours for sales and workshop tasks, streamline approval of hours, and manage schedules with accurate budget insights.
Evolia also provided crucial functionalities like mobile punching and notifications for open shifts, helping to create further collaboration and coordination between branches.
Complexities in Workforce and Schedule Management
Bicycles Quilicot has been able to accomplish so much more in their business, saving time on the mundane tasks like schedule management, so they can focus on the important aspects of running their multiple bike boutiques. Front-line employees, managers, and leadership are all benefiting from Evolia, including:
- Managers can now oversee and adjust departmental budgets directly within the auto-scheduling tool, reducing reliance on manual data entry and ensuring financial oversight is maintained in real-time.
- The use of mobile time and attendance features has simplified time tracking across multiple locations, ensuring accurate attendance records and reducing errors in payroll processing.
- The platform’s chat and announcement features have strengthened internal communications, building a more connected and cohesive workforce. While maintaining employee privacy and security.
“It’s definitely helped us evolve in terms of schedule management, and it’s enabled us to communicate better with our employees. We also use the platform’s messages, which allow us to communicate announcements and departures… The whole system creates a stronger corporate culture because you can really get your messages across better. We’ve always had good service from everyone we’ve done business with from the start. ”
Pedalling Towards Future Success
Evolia has not only streamlined Bicycles Quilicot’ scheduling and payroll processes but has also enhanced the overall management of staff and resources.
The flexibility and comprehensive features have enabled Bicycles Quilicot to maintain its legacy of passion and dedication in the competitive retail cycling market. We’re excited to provide software that can meet those high standards.
Plan. Work. Together.
Shift-Based Recruiting
Automatic Scheduling
Time & Attendance
Task Management
Absence Management
Team Communications
See Evolia in action.
Learn how we can streamline your scheduling and optimize your HR operations.
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- Help select a plan that is right for your business
- Explain next steps and best practices